sweet fire sing
to a primeval moon
made of
stardust,
and all that is to be-
of our dreamers and dancers,
when earth has not yet fully
unfurled. Can you
feel a melody lift over the wilds,
through the spring fields,
through rivers and oceans,
finding its story to tell?
Think back, my dear;
can you remember,
remember the sprawling fields of years ago?
The gentle hums of farm vehicles as they roll on by
through sweet summer lanes
and white fences long gone.
Do you remember the untroubled laughter of the river
and the songs she sang along with the birds?
among the hares and the youngest deer, their noses twitching,
warming the morning air with their breath,
and, oh, the ivy curling its way around tall resplendent pillars like tendrils reaching for the sky- whereupon shone an equally loving sun, turning all it touched to go
i want it to taste like
dew on the spider-webs of six in the morning,
weathered wood, our breath fogging up
red-leafed air.
the blush of an apple in the autumn.
wet roads, windscreens.
you and me,
mugs of tea on a long country road.
you know,
at first i drew her pretty,
like you said.
i drew her with eager eyes and
a dentist's dream smile,
and her eyebrows perfectly
arched.
but she didn't looked complete.
and, you know,
the more i fixed the lines i made,
the more i erased,
the more i tried to make her
look like a daydream-
her eyes turned dark
and her lips sharpened.
- the more she turned into something
wicked.
"so yeah. we hired a van,
packed our bags and drove down south,"
he said. "me, jasper, ryan, uh, that gang,
about eight, nine of us,
got down to donnybrook and this motorbike came along
and just,"
he motioned with his hands-
"crashed straight into the windshield."
sophie flinched. "what?"
"well yeah. anyways,
none of us were hurt,
i don't even know how that happened,
and that guy just stares at us all
disoriented like,
and-"
he glances across and her eyes flick
back at him,
and he swallows.
the ground was muddy beneath his feet-
it had rained for the first time in months
that thursday. "and he's sitting there next
to his motorbike,
jus
back when they were in high school,
cody caught the bus
further than anyone else,
to a line of run-down tenements
running the base of the hills like ants.
it was the autumn of twenty-sixteen
when he plucked up
a life in twenty days
and i keep thinking of streetlights, manhattan and apartments,
and this world that brought us so close,
so close i cradled your heart
in these cold-bare arms
and it thawed the winter away.
this love is like a slow dance,
warm and sweet and soft,
the last of the evening when the stars are
so low in the sky,
they send you straight to sleep.
whenever i think of you,
i can't imagine us in this red country,
this stricken country which we call home,
keeping company with
the loneliest nights that man could find
because, darling,
you are my home.